Black Mask Audio Magazine, Vol. 1

Classic Hard-Boiled Tales from the Original Black Mask (Hollywood Theater of the Ear)

By Hugh Cave, Rueben J. Shay, William Cole, and more

2009

First Published

3.61

Average Rating

Number of Pages

0H01M

Audio Length

In the 1930s and 40s, Black Mask helped reshape the modern mystery genre with its hard-boiled detectives pioneered by the likes of Raymond Chandler. Now, the toughest of tough detectives are resurrected in sonic dramatization.

Avg Rating

3.61

Number of Ratings

178

5 STARS

17%

4 STARS

38%

3 STARS

35%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Authors

Hugh Cave

Author · 17 books

Hugh Barnett Cave was a prolific writer of pulp fiction who also excelled in other genres. Sources differ as to when Cave sold his first story: some say it was while he still attended Brookline High School, others cite "Island Ordeal", written at age 19 in 1929 while still working for the vanity press. In his early career he contributed to such pulp magazines as Astounding, Black Mask, and Weird Tales. By his own estimate, in the 1930s alone, he published roughly 800 short stories in nearly 100 periodicals under a number of pseudonyms. Of particular interest during this time was his series featuring an independent gentleman of courageous action and questionable morals called simply The Eel. These adventures appeared in the late 1930s and early 40s under the pen name Justin Case. Cave was also one of the most successful contributors to the weird menace or "shudder pulps" of the 1930s. In 1943, drawing on his experience as a war reporter, he authored one of his most highly regarded novels, Long Were the Nights, telling of the first PT boats at Guadalcanal. He also wrote a number of other books on the war in the Pacific during this period. During his post-war sojourn in Haiti, he became so familiar with the religion of Voodoo that he published Haiti: High Road to Adventure, a nonfiction work critically acclaimed as the "best report on voodoo in English." His Caribbean experiences led to his best-selling Voodoo-themed novel, The Cross On The Drum (1959), an interracial story in which a white Christian missionary falls in love with a black Voodoo priest's sister. During this midpoint in his career Cave advanced his writing to the "slick" magazines, including Collier's, Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and the Saturday Evening Post. It was in this latter publication, in 1959, that "The Mission," his most popular short story, appeared—subsequently issued in hardcover by Doubleday, reprinted in textbooks, and translated into a number of languages. But his career took a dip in the early 1970s. According to The Guardian, with the golden era of pulp fiction now in the past, Cave's "only regular market was writing romance for women's magazines." He was rediscovered, however, by Karl Edward Wagner, who published Murgunstrumm and Others, a horror story collection that won Cave the 1978 World Fantasy Award. Other collections followed and Cave also published new horror fiction. His later career included the publication in the late 1970s and early 1980s of four successful fantasy novels: Legion of the Dead (1979), The Nebulon Horror (1980), The Evil (1981), and Shades of Evil (1982). Two other notable late works are Lucifer's Eye (1991) and The Mountains of Madness (2004). Moreover, Cave took naturally to the Internet, championing the e-book to such an extent that electronic versions of his stories can readily be purchased online. Over his entire career he wrote more than 1,000 short stories in nearly all genres (though he is best remembered for his horror and crime pieces), approximately forty novels, and a notable body of nonfiction. He received the Phoenix Award as well as lifetime achievement awards from the International Horror Guild, the Horror Writers Association, and the World Fantasy Convention. (From Wikipedia.) Used the pseudonyms John Starr and Justin Case

William Rossa Cole (1919-2000) was best known as an editor and anthologist. He was editor or author (or co-editor or co-author) of about 75 books, 50 of them anthologies. Three of his books were honored by the ALA: I Went to the Animal Fair in 1958, Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls in 1964, and The Birds and Beast Were There in 1965. He was an editor for Simon & Schuster and Viking, and a columnist for the Saturday Review. He died in summer 2000, at the age of 80.

Paul Cain

Author · 6 books

Paul Cain was the pen name of George Caryl Sims (1902–1966), a pulp fiction author and screenwriter. His sole novel, Fast One (1932), is considered a landmark of the hardboiled style.

Frederick Nebel

Author · 3 books

Largely self-educated, Frederick Lewis Nebel was sent to live with his grandfather in northern Canada in order to escape the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic ravaging New York City. There he soaked up Canadian pioneer history, which he'd draw upon in the 1920s writing for the pulp, "Northwest Stories", which is where he'd score his initial success as an author. Nebel spent his early adulthood working his way across the Atlantic and Europe as a merchant seaman. In Paris, he'd met his future wife, Dorothy and together they wandered back stateside and the couple took up residence in St. Louis, Missouri where Nebel began his writing career in earnest. After his first successful sales to "Northwest Stories", he branched out to other burgeoning pulp publishers, writing effectively across several genres. Aside from "Northwest Stories", Nebel scored big with "Black Mask" in 1926. Its legendary publisher Joe 'Cap' Shaw promoted Nebel as its first star author, probably in an effort to upgrade the image of the 6-year old magazine, which he felt was hindered by the almost inexplicable popularity of the mindless writing of Caroll J. Daly. Nebel's characters were denizens of Richmond City; police captain Steve MacBride and a sometime acrimoniously-teamed local news reporter simply named Kennedy. Nebel burned through 37 actioned-packed stories that were among the most popular entries in the magazine. Nebel went on to create another memorable hard-nosed character, Donny Donahue that Shaw promoted as a replacement from the high-profile loss of Dashiell Hammett. Donny Donahue, a private dick from the Interstate Detective Agency debuted in 1930 and kept readers happy over the next 3 years. Although Nebel has several film credits, he maintained a very negative view of Hollywood. He would often cite examples of how the studios chewed up his colleagues. Nebel would license the film rights to his stories (most famously Torchy Blaine) to the highest bidder, steadfastly declining to write the screenplays. In later years he discontinued writing crime stories altogether, shifting to romance stories for the women's magazine market. Plagued with health problems in his 50s his writing ground to a premature stop. He died in 1967.